Messier 66 (Upper Left), a mere 35 million light-years away. About 100 thousand light-years across with striking dust lanes and bright star clusters along sweeping spiral arms, M66 is well known to astronomers as a member of the Leo Triplet of galaxies. Gravitational interactions with its neighborhood galaxies have likely influenced the shape of dusty spiral M66.

Messier 65 (Lower Right) is a big, beautiful spiral galaxy, the sixty-fifth object in the famous astronomical catalog compiled by 18th century cosmic tourist Charles Messier. It's also a member of a picturesque trio of large spiral galaxies known as the Leo Triplet, about 35 million light-years away. Very nearly edge-on to our line-of-sight, M65 is about 100,000 light-years across, similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy.

Date: May and June 2009
Location: St. Augustine, Florida
Optics: Ritchey-Chretien 10" f/7.35
Mount: AP 1200 GTO on Portable Pier
Camera: SBIG STl-6303E
Guiding: Astrodon OAG with Starlight Lodestar camera
Exposure: LRGB: Luminance: 8x15 minutes; RGB: 5x15 Minutes each
Processing: CCDStack and PhotoshopCS4